The unfriendly skies

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – For some people, going home for the holidays is about as pleasant as getting January’s credit card bill. There’s obnoxious relatives, lumpy foldout couches and fanny-expanding fare.

But for those afraid to fly, the worst part of the holiday comes before the gifts are exchanged.

“I was a mess, I was hysterically crying,” Helen Moyer of Allentown, Pa., said of the times she had to fly before getting help from a hypnotherapist. “I was convinced I was destined to die in a plane crash. I’d write letters to my family saying, ‘I love you.’ “

Moyer isn’t alone. Roughly one out of six people is afraid to fly, said Stacey Chance, an American Airlines pilot who offers an online course at www.fearofflyinghelp.com to help ease the jitters of anxious fliers.

“I see people getting on the airplane who are pretty nervous,” said Chance, who’s been a pilot for 22 years. “Some are so scared they won’t make eye contact or they might have some ritual where they tap the door before they board. It’s overwhelming for them. Since I do this for a living, I wanted to be able to share how safe and routine it is to fly.”

Chance estimates between 400 and 500 people a day visit his Web site and of that number between 30 and 50 will complete the free online course.

“Hits on the Web site increase during the holidays,” he said. “You get people who normally don’t fly and the stresses of seeing family, that adds to it.”

For Moyer, it was a sudden drop in altitude during a flight to Cancun that triggered her aversion to the friendly skies.

“Everyone on the plane started screaming,” she said. “That started it all and then little by little the thought of having to go on a plane was overwhelming.”

Glen Arnold, an aviation psychologist in Bakersfield, Calif., said a lot of people get spooked by turbulence, but swirling air currents have never caused a plane to crash.

“People don’t understand how flight works, so that can cause anxiety,” he said. “If there’s an engine problem, they conclude an airplane is losing its ability to fly.”

But that doesn’t happen. If a plane did lose use of its engines, it would maintain flight and descend, said Arnold, who operates Thairapy, a program that uses relaxation techniques coupled with basic aeronautic education.

White-knuckle fliers can suffer from claustrophobia or a fear of heights or develop a phobia after a major event, such as the death of a parent or birth of a child, Chance said. Others are afraid of losing control.

“They ask me if it’s possible to open a door while flying,” he said. “They’re afraid they might freak out and open a door uncontrollably.”

Al Forgione, director of the Institute for Psychology of Air Travel in Boston, said fearful flyers are usually highly intelligent people who have vivid imaginations.

“It’s imaginations gone wild,” he said. “They’re falling through the floor, the wings are burning off. Fear has no regard or sympathy. It doesn’t save you from anything. The first thing we drill into people is it’s only a feeling. Just because you feel anxiety doesn’t mean something bad is going to happen.”

Diane Donaher, whose husband, Dean, is principal of Liberty High School in Bethlehem, Pa., wasn’t afraid to fly until after 9/11.

“It’s really anxiety,” she said. “It was more of a security issue.”

Faced with having to board a plane for a trip to Hawaii with her family and the Liberty High School band, Donaher signed up for a Fear of Flying seminar at Lehigh Valley International Airport.

There, she met hypnotherapist Beverly Bley and United Airlines pilot Fran McBride, who eased her fears, she said, by explaining the mechanics of flight, what the different noises mean and the security measures in place.

On a recent Saturday, the day before she was supposed to leave, Donaher had a panic attack.

“I was really desperate,” she said. “My anxiety was getting on everyone’s nerves.”

So she e-mailed McBride. “He was very calm and reassuring,” she said. “He told me the bumps in the air had nothing to do with safety, and I should read or listen to a tape.”

On Sunday, clutching a printout of his e-mail, Donaher flew to Hawaii.

Toni DeJonge, formerly of Williams Township, refused to get on an airplane after getting stuck inside the bathroom of a bus.

“I kept fiddling with the door and I couldn’t get out,” said DeJonge, who now resides in Florida with her husband, Stu. “From that one experience, that was it. I thought the bathroom on a plane is just like the one on a bus.”

So, she didn’t fly. For years.

It wasn’t until her husband was set to fly to Europe on business and she wanted to tag along that she decided to take matters into her own hands.

A few months before the trip, DeJonge started visiting Lehigh Valley International Airport, where she was allowed to practice sitting in the bathroom of an airplane to gain confidence.

“I thought, ‘Let me see if I can close the door,’ ” she said. She couldn’t, but she discovered that if she inserted an empty paper towel holder into the door to keep it from shutting completely, she could tolerate the confinement for a few minutes.

“They must have thought I was crazy,” she said. “I still have to have someone stand outside the door, just in case.”

Bley, an Allentown, Pa., hypnotherapist, said people are often afraid of admitting they have a problem.

“When it comes to any phobia, whether it’s a fear of snakes or dogs or flying, people just don’t talk about it because they’re afraid people will belittle their fears and say, ‘Just get over it,’ ” she said.

Oftentimes, she said, people don’t know what caused their fear of flying.

“It could be their mother never flew because she was afraid,” she said. “This gets imprinted into their subconscious mind as something that is dangerous or risky. That first information was taken in emotionally, so no amount of rationality is going to offset that. You can’t talk someone out of a phobia.”

That’s where hypnosis comes in, she said.

“I can reframe the original information that wasn’t correct,” she said.

Chance’s online program is free, but people are encouraged to make a donation to keep it going if it’s brought them relief and many do, he said.

“It’s neat to get e-mails from women who are getting married and had been freaking out about flying for their honeymoon, or people who had to fly to China to get a baby,” he said. “That’s the rewarding part.”

Moyer, too, overcame her fear of flying thanks to Bley. July Fourth she flew to Italy.

“I called it my independence day,” she said. “I was a bit nervous on takeoff, but I listened to my CD” Bley had supplied of relaxation tips. “I was so happy. It was so freeing. I would definitely fly again.”